Page 491 - The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

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BUILDING A NEW LIFE 485
A.A.’s with kids on the teams, and we would hang
around together at the games. I really enjoyed myself.
My sobriety baby is now in college. I have beautiful
relationships with all my kids.
Pushed by my sponsor, I got into service work right
away, and I really enjoyed it. Now I’m a general ser-
vice representative of a Spanish-speaking group,
learning how to express myself about this great gift of
sobriety in my original language.
There have been some hard times too during these
years of sobriety. When I was five years sober, the
daughter who drove me to the treatment program and
helped me get admitted disappeared. My A.A. friends
helped me search for her, but she has never been
found. Her mother and I raised her three daughters. I
did not have to take a drink. I went to lots of meetings
to relieve the pain. When I lost a second daughter to
cancer a few years ago, I did the same thing.
What I’ve learned is that it doesn’t matter what
hardships and losses I’ve endured in sobriety, I have
not had to go back to drinking. As long as I work the
program, keep being of service, go to meetings, and
keep my spiritual life together, I can live a decent life.
When I look back now, I think I stopped maturing
at fifteen when I started to get drunk with the older
guys. I wanted to feel at peace with myself and com-
fortable with other people. I never found it in drink-
ing. The belonging I always wanted I have found in
A.A. and in sobriety. I don’t think about drinking. God
is there. My sponsor is there. All the credit belongs
to God. On my own I could not have quit. I know, I
tried it.